March for Science

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As someone who is broadly keen on secularism and empiricism, I should really be very much in favour of this. However, I get the impression that this is as much about pushing politics into science as it is about pushing science into politics. I know it is a shot selected by the So-Called BBC, but these placards don't seem to be anything other than political pseudoscience of the most banal kind. I think it's a shame that an opportunities like this get hijacked by morons.

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Would question the reason and logic abilities of anyone attending. Historically real scientific breakthroughs have been by made by curious people experimenting and thinking, in the privacy of their own home laboratory where any conclusions they drew were untroubled by peer review, consensus and what people on twitter think.

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Would question the reason and logic abilities of anyone attending. Historically real scientific breakthroughs have been by made by curious people experimenting and thinking, in the privacy of their own home laboratory where any conclusions they drew were untroubled by peer review, consensus and what people on twitter think.

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As someone who is broadly keen on secularism and empiricism, I should really be very much in favour of this. However, I get the impression that this is as much about pushing politics into science as it is about pushing science into politics. I know it is a shot selected by the So-Called So-Called BBC, but these placards don't seem to be anything other than political pseudoscience of the most banal kind. I think it's a shame that an opportunities like this get hijacked by morons.

This is all some wanker propagandists attempt to hijack "science" for political ends.

It's the argument from authority logical fallacy writ large as a fucking parade of arseholes who don't know the difference between evidence based decision making and doing what the self styled experts tell you.

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Being a jobbing environmental scientist / ecologist, I was quite delighted at Trump's cut of the EPA budget, although I don't like his views on the environment. I think they protest too much. We could do with a bit of a funding cut in the UK too in environmental science just to cut out the rot. The trouble is, patronage, nepotism etc will mean that the cuts will fall on the wrong people in both countries.

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A scientific approach would be to have a measure of the success of the march built in to the march process. Perhaps to have a pilot march, and find out if it made any difference whatsoever before unleashing a proper march. Or maybe a 'for science' and 'against science' march to see if the actual march message made any difference at all.

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Being a jobbing environmental scientist / ecologist, I was quite delighted at Trump's cut of the EPA budget, although I don't like his views on the environment. I think they protest too much. We could do with a bit of a funding cut in the UK too in environmental science just to cut out the rot. The trouble is, patronage, nepotism etc will mean that the cuts will fall on the wrong people in both countries.

Yes, I consider myself an environmentalist - but I have no problem with the principle of putting a sceptic in charge of the EPA (providing they genuinely are open minded/not purely in the pockets of big business). Really dislike the fact that concern for the environment seems to have turned into something associated with the left wing.

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Yes, I consider myself an environmentalist - but I have no problem with the principle of putting a sceptic in charge of the EPA (providing they genuinely are open minded/not purely in the pockets of big business). Really dislike the fact that concern for the environment seems to have turned into something associated with the left wing.

Yes, that's where the old fashioned Socialists went, when Blair killed Socialism.

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Yes, I consider myself an environmentalist - but I have no problem with the principle of putting a sceptic in charge of the EPA (providing they genuinely are open minded/not purely in the pockets of big business). Really dislike the fact that concern for the environment seems to have turned into something associated with the left wing.

Open-minded skeptics are fine. We need economics and environment to be close cooperating bed-fellows. While I'm alarmed by what Trump says, I'll wait to see his actions.

What we have had is token environmentalism on both sides of the pond. Small amounts of money in total budget terms have been thrown at the environment by all colours of government so that they can show their activist public they are 'doing something' and so taking the environment seriously. The government is relatively uninterested in the outputs however, and there is no real external oversight as the funding is only a 'token' gesture. This has allowed ill-informed do-gooders and SJWs to take over in the 'environmental organisations especially at grass roots, which combined with the fact that young graduates with no environmental experience are cheap bodies to fill seats. Of course there have been some environmental successes, but there has been an awful lot of dross, cock-ups, wasted money and misguided environmentalism, often with unintended consequences that were in fact, perfectly simple to foresee.

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A scientific approach would be to have a measure of the success of the march built in to the march process. Perhaps to have a pilot march, and find out if it made any difference whatsoever before unleashing a proper march. Or maybe a 'for science' and 'against science' march to see if the actual march message made any difference at all.

It would require a control group march for reference, marching for nothing at all. Like a Liberal Democrat march or something

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The orthodox history is that the Church prosecuted Galileo for telling the truth when in reality they were fine with evidence based theories coming out on a managed basis rather than being used to take the piss out of the Church as he did.

And then in his later years Galileo started asserting stuff without proof because he was a "scientist". Which was exactly what he had taken the Church to task for when he was younger.

As Spygirl said climate science is way too complex to predict with confidence anyway, it's like trying to predict your lifespan based upon the number of fags you smoke.

This march isn't for "science"; it's for unquestioning obedience to the non-scientific opinions and prejudices of scientists.

And I'm not having a go at scientists there, I have considerable respect for anybody who does this either professionally or on an amateur basis.